Posts Tagged ‘Instinct’

Here at Cell Canada, we’ve been engaged in an active debate about whether to go the Bell & Samsung Instinct route or the Rogers & iPhone route.

Crunchgear ran a comparison on the two and summarized the features in this table:

Feature

iPhone

Instinct

Virtual QWERTY

x

x

Visual voicemail

x

x

Video recording

x

Camera

x

x

Web browser

x

x

Voice navigation

x

3G

x

WiFi

x

Bluetooth

x

x

Expandable memory

x

Streaming multimedia

x

Email

x

x

SMS

x

x

MMS

x

True GPS

x

Music

x

x

Maps

x

x

Mobile TV

x

YouTube

x

Live home view

x

The iPhone in the comparison was the 2G version. The new 3G iPhone picks up 3G and GPS to bring the hardware feature comparison into a near draw.

Of course, the iPhone is about user interface and software. It is essentially a portable computer with a strong OS, a great development framework, and through the developer program and App store, the potential to become a very feature rich tool.

The Instinct on the other hand is about basics and price. Phone, Email, and Web. The primary applications on the iPhone are well represented on the Instinct. At $149 on contract, it costs less than the iPhone and most importantly, on Bell, you can add unlimited data on an Instinct for $10/month. The unlimited aspect balances out most of the wifi advantage of the iPhone. Over a 3 year contract, the Bell data plan is at least $720 better than the Rogers option. A detailed Instinct review here on CNET.

We are still split here but now that Rogers has positioned a better data plan at $30/month for 6GB and given the upside application/tool potential of the iPhone, we’re leaning towards the iPhone.

It’s all about the App store. Is the innovation that may come through the App store worth an extra $20/month?